La MaMa Kids: Patient(ce) Dance Workshop
Dance Workshop
With Company SBB Stefanie Batten Bland
This intergenerational workshop will focus on the work of PATIENT(CE). An interdisciplinary piece that examines physical harmony found between space and time. Interacting with an enormous cloud of fabric children and adults work together to support weight and find balance when working with an inanimate partner.
Unguarded by abstraction and undeterred by convention, the emotional content of Stefanie Batten Bland’s work is directly accessible; its powerful emotional, social and philosophical message is visceral. Her works, dance installations, which combine movement, original visual art and music, are site-specific and designed to embrace the space and community within.
Beginning in New York City, followed by over ten years in Europe before a return to Soho six years ago, Stefanie Batten Bland’s career has taken a geographically circuitous path to her present status as a 2016 Jerome Robbins Award honoree.
In 2008, while head choreographer of the Paris Opera Comique, in France under direction of Jérôme Savary, Stefanie founded Company SBB so that she might better investigate the human condition and relationships within our natural world. Her pieces, a passionate response to world issues with an optimistic belief in community, radiate with profound humanity, generosity and keen observation of human nature. They have been acknowledged with great acclaim.
In addition to dances commissioned by the Second Avenue Dance Company (New York City), Modlin Center for the Arts (Richmond, VA), Zenon Dance Company (Minneapolis, MN), Transitions Dance Company (London), Alvin Ailey ll Company (New York City) and Frontier Danceland (Singapore), Company SBB has been seen in the United States, Europe and Asia. Recent artistic residencies include Point Park University, NYU Tisch School of The Arts, Oakland University, Wayne State University, Spelman College, Santa Fe College, University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University, Ohio University, Middle Tennessee State University, Guest Faculty at Ithaca College and Rutgers University.
While the majority of her creative efforts are committed to creating site specific installations that unite dance with music and visual arts, Batten Bland has created nine films that have been seen in international festivals in Europe, South America, the United States and South Africa. She has also choreographed for Guerlain Perfumes, Van Cleef & Arpels, Louis Vuitton, SYTYCD-Poland and the French Presidential Gala of Cannes in 2012. Awards include: 2016 Jerome Robbins Award, 2016 Bessie Schonberg Fellow at The Yard, 2015 Kevin Spacey Foundation Artists Choice Award, 2015 Alvin Ailey Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab Fellow, 2014 Joffrey Ballet Choreographer of Color and a 2010-2012 Baryshnikov Arts Center Resident Artist/Jerome Robbins NEW Fellow.
As a performer Batten Bland danced for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Seán Curran Company, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Angelin Preljocaj and Julie Taymor, Compagnie Georges Momboye, Compagnie Linga, Pal Frenak, Pina Bausch Tanz Theater Wüppertal and Punch Drunk. She is currently completing her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts with concentration in Performance Creation at Goddard College in Vermont and teaches improvisation and contemporary partnering at Ailey/Fordham BFA program. companysbb.org
La MaMa Kids
La MaMa Kids Online presents kids performances and hands-on workshops online, timed especially for “after school” viewing! La MaMa will continue to use emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression that questions how art can function and how we as a society can survive challenging periods of history.